


Coming Home

by stareyednight



Series: Settling In, Settling Down [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bisexual Steve Rogers, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Coming Out, M/M, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Pining, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pride, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2018-01-24
Packaged: 2019-03-08 20:55:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13466373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stareyednight/pseuds/stareyednight
Summary: Steve comes home to New York and tries to figure himself out, Natasha helps and Bucky is working through his own issues.





	Coming Home

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Jill, Mikayla and Rebecca for their suggestions and input. Without them this story would be a lot less good.
> 
> This is a sequel to [Accumulated on the Memory](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7386436). It will make more sense having read that one first.

He held out for a while, but after SHIELD falls Steve is floundering and it seems much simpler to head back to New York and take Tony up on his offer.

“Come on, Capsicle, a floor for everyone, and everyone to a floor. I designed it especially for you and when I say that I mean I came up with the idea and the schematics, and then Pepper made sure you have a couch and a bed and wouldn’t let me decorate it in exclusively red, white and blue.”

Tony gestures expansively but the hope in his eyes is what sells it for Steve. That and the idea of everyone being safe where he can keep an eye on them. “Have you heard from Natasha?”

“Yeah, our little spider has been in and out for a few weeks. You were the last hold out, except Thor, but he’s got the whole alien space god thing - what was so great about DC anyway? The bullet holes in your apartment, Capitol Hill trying to get their hands on you, the giant wreck in the Potomac?” Tony offers the bag of trail mix and Steve takes a handful. “Is it your new bird man-friend, because we can probably make room for him. J, we’ve got some space for another bird themed guy, right?”

“Avengers Tower currently has four unoccupied residential levels now that Captain Rogers is taking up residence,” JARVIS says and only long practice keeps Steve from startling. There were some things it took a little while longer to adjust to.

“I think Sam’s happy where he’s at right now, but I’ll tell him you want to add him to the collection.” 

“Well, mi casa is superheroes casa, so tell him I’ll at least have a new prototype for those wings soon. Maybe a week.”

“Sir, you have to deliver the new energy prototype to Miss Potts by the shareholders meeting on Friday.”

“...Two weeks, then.”

Steve doesn’t say you don’t have to, or Sam wouldn’t ask you to, because he’s starting to understand that this is how Tony shows he cares. Instead he nods. “I’ll tell him. JARVIS, can you help me find a moving company in DC?”

 

Three days later Steve is standing in his new living room amid more boxes than he thought he’d have. Apparently he’d accumulated a few more things since he last moved and with a sigh he starts to dig in. Pepper had assured him that the apartments came with fully stocked kitchens, so he’d donated his embarrassingly miniscule amounts of cutlery and plates to a local shelter, but kept a few of the coffee mugs, which he starts unwrapping from their newspaper and placing on the counter to wash.

It isn’t even an hour before Natasha shows up, just as he had moved from the living room to the bedroom and he gets up from the piles of shirts to answer her knock. She gives him a hug, her arms tight around his neck and he’s surprised at how good it feels, realising it’s been a while since anyone touched him.

“Hey there,” she says, touching his cheek briefly before brushing past him into the living room. “Guess you decided to join the cool kids up here in the lap of luxury.”

“Yeah, well, got tired of the breeze through the walls at the old place.”

“They just don’t make them like they used to,” she returns, looking around. “This is nice. Pepper did a good job.”

“When does she not?” Steve rubs the back of his neck as Natasha starts to poke around the shelves. “It still feels too big, like too much just for me, but it’s really nice of Tony. And, it’ll be nice to be near everyone.”

She glances up at him, a knowing look in her eye. “Dad making sure all the kids are home safe?”

“Good to have the company,” he replies, like he wasn’t just admitting how the loneliness got to be too much sometimes, and she nods. He’s not sure why she’s inspecting his books, they’re the same ones he’d had when she had helped him unpack in DC.

“Why did you decide to leave DC?” she asks casually, poking through the hardcovers.

He thinks about how it felt sitting in his apartment, wondering if Bucky would come find him again and the hollow feeling that grew the longer he waited, rattling around with nothing to do but worry himself in circles. He shrugs. “I’ll always be a New Yorker at heart.”

She doesn’t look like she believes him, but is nice enough to let it pass unremarked. “Anyway, do you want help? I’m pretty sure I remember how you like your shirts organised.”

Which is how he ends up with a spy and former assassin standing in his closet and passing judgement on all his clothes as she hangs them up.

“You bought me that,” he reminds her as she sneers at a navy sweater and she just rolls her eyes. “And you picked that out. And those pants.” Natasha ignores him, as he expected, and opens another box. She tosses him the sleep shirts and boxers she’s found, which he tries not to feel too embarrassed about, but he’s also pretty sure she did on purpose.

He doesn’t really notice what she’s pulling out, too busy trying to contain his blush and get his underwear put away both casually and very quickly, when she throws over her shoulder “Is this one for the bedroom, or living room?”

Puzzled, he turns to see and his brain catches up just as he sees inside the open box she’s holding, a Bucky Bear face just poking out from under a Brooklyn Dodgers cap. The faintest scent of pomade drifts out and his chest clenches automatically. His heart is beating fast and he’s got that knot forming in his throat and he has no idea what’s on his face as Natasha looks up at him. It must be something, because she closes the flaps and sets it aside without another word and instead tosses him some socks.

“I need a coffee, you want one?”

“Yeah, sure.” The words catch in his dry throat. “I’m just going to…” She’s already out into the kitchen and he can hear her starting the coffee maker and rinsing mugs out as he looks at the cardboard box like it’s a bomb. Carefully, he picks it up and takes it into the walk in closet, lifting it onto a shelf that just above his eye level. He hasn’t thought about the contents of the box in a while and it’s left him feeling a little rattled.

He heads out to the kitchen just as Natasha is pouring the coffee, adding milk to his before sliding it over. Steve cups the mug and looks into its depths, avoiding her eyes. He knows that she’ll let it go if he wants her to. She prys and snoops and relentlessly tries to set him up, but she cares fiercely. 

But, he’s been sitting on this for so long and everything Natasha has said makes him think that she’s not going to hate him for it. He takes a deep breath.

“For a little while after I… after I woke up I kept picking up stuff that reminded me of him. Like he wasn’t gone and he’d just come home one day and I could give it to him. For a while it made me feel better, closer to him, but there came a point where it was just hurting more than it helped. Couldn’t bring myself to throw it all away, though, so…” He gives a self-deprecating smirk and finally looks up.

There isn’t any teasing in her eyes, though, and she’s absently toying with the arrow on her necklace. She stops when she sees him watching and leans in across the counter. “Grieving isn’t always the same for everyone.”

“Do you know how long it was between him falling and me putting the plane in the water?” She shakes her head and he looks down again. “Two weeks. I -,” he takes another breath and plunges on. “I loved him so much that I think when he died it broke something in me. I didn’t know how to function in a world that didn’t have Bucky in it. I don’t think I wanted to try”

A hand covers his and he looks up to see Natasha gazing at him steadily. “I’m sorry, Steve.”

He shakes his head. “It’s not like we were… anything. He never knew.” He takes a sip of his coffee to try to ease the tightness in his throat.

Her lips quirk. “I didn’t realise feelings were based on how someone else felt about them.” He rolls his eyes and gives her a weak smile. “Thank you for telling me.” She draws her hand back and toys with her mug. “When we find him, do you think you’ll tell him?”

Steve suppresses the urge to laugh. “ _If_ we find him. _If_ he even wants to talk to me when we do.” He looks up, meeting her eyes. “I don’t need him to love me back, I just want him to come home.”

Natasha sips at her coffee again. “You know he might not want to come back?”

He knows she’s right but he still flinches. “Yeah, Sam also mentioned that might be a possibility. I want to give him the choice though. Maybe if he know he’s wanted, that he’s got a place here…” He shrugs, trying for resigned and failing miserably. 

Natasha finishes her coffee and stands. “Well, when Sam comes down next weekend we can start making some plans. For now, those shirts aren’t going to hang themselves. Chop chop.”

 

Later that night, Steve stands in front of the huge windows and looks out over the city. Natasha had stayed for dinner and managed to gently draw some stories about Bucky out of him. She has a deft touch and knew what to ask to avoid his tender spots and when to change the topic and stuff him with samosas. It had felt good to tell those stories, though, and he’d enjoyed making her smile at some of their old tricks.

Now he stands and looks over a city that has changed so much since they were boys, running around and scraping out a living together. It’s not just his vantage point, so much higher up than he ever thought he’d be living, but the way the city looks, more lit up than he could have imagined it and he trips on a thought that hadn’t come up in a while - _I wish Bucky could see this._ Then he thinks about the Winter Soldier and how Bucky probably has seen it and his stomach twists. He turns away from the window, trying not to think about where Bucky could be right now 

He pushes away the thoughts about Washington being where Bucky knew he lived, and briefly misses having been close to the Smithsonian so he could watch that tiny loop of video over and over just to see Bucky laugh. He pauses as he remembers where he now lives.

“JARVIS?”

“Yes, Captain Rogers?”

“There’s a piece of film that’s played at the Smithsonian in the, uh, the Captain America exhibit. Old black and white clip of Sergeant Barnes and I during the war. Is there a way, I mean, is it available, do you know how I could see it?” he finishes lamely. He knows JARVIS won’t judge him, is incapable of judging him, but he’s intensely embarrassed nonetheless. 

“Of course, Captain. It is the Ned Schiller footage from France, October 1943. Would you like the whole piece or just the clip shown at the Smithsonian?”

Steve blinks. “There’s more?” 

“The entire piece of footage is 6 minutes and 18 seconds and was used in parts for a number of different newsreels with varying voice overs. I can retrieve those as well.”

“No, thank you JARVIS. I’ll just take the original.”

“Certainly Captain. It will be stored on your hard drive and can be accessed through your television or smartphone at anytime.”

“Thanks JARVIS.”

“My pleasure, Captain.”

The tv bursts to life and Steve sits himself on the couch and doesn’t move for the entire 6 minutes and 18 seconds. It’s silent as well as black and white, but he can almost hear it anyway. He’d forgotten that they’d filmed the whole unit and seeing Gabe and Dernier elbowing each other while Monty looks on and Dum Dum flips his hat and is laughed at by Morita when he misses makes his mouth twitch in a sad smile. There’s the bits of them looking at maps and he’s slowly remembering trying to get work done around the camera people. 

The part with Bucky is longer than what is shown in the museum, but not long enough. He can’t seem to remember what Bucky had said to make him laugh and he feels like his eyes are thirsty, trying to drink in every second they’re on screen together. Bucky nudges him on the screen and the him in the film laughs more. How anyone can look at this and not realise how much in love he was is beyond him, but he’s glad for the sake of Bucky’s memory that no one else seems to see it. 

He watches it one more time and Bucky’s smile soothes the rough edges in him and calms the agitation that had been growing. Bucky’s alive, he reminds himself. Even if he’s not here, he’s alive and maybe he’ll smile at Steve like that again one day. That mantra soothes him further and he’s able to go to bed in his new apartment with hope in his heart.

 

He’s got Steve’s route staked out pretty well. For all that he’s a former soldier and sort-of agent, Rogers has a terrible sense of self preservation. He rarely varies his jogging circuit, doesn’t seem to realise how his stupidly huge shoulders stand out in his ridiculously tight t-shirts and likes to stop and help people with things. From lifting heavy boxes at the bodega to reaching the top shelf for little old ladies, he’s a menace who’d be dead if Bucky were still the Winter Soldier.

That thought grates for a moment and he hunches his shoulders further in the battered army surplus jacket he’s wearing and shakes his head as if to clear it. The Winter Soldier is still him, he’ll never not be, especially with the red-tinged memories drifting through his head. But he’s starting to remember more and more what it felt like to be Bucky Barnes and so much of that is tied up with Steve Rogers and an innate pull to keep an eye on him.

He’s so wrapped up in scowling at Steve’s unprotected back that he almost doesn’t hear the whisper of air signaling a foot coming for his head. He manages to duck it, but barely, and he’s cursing Steve for distracting him and himself for getting distracted enough so a spider can get the drop on him.

She follows it up with a very fast striking combination and a well placed knee to his kidney. He twists away and manages to land a flat palm to her sternum. She stumbles back, but then comes at him again, climbing his leg to what he’s realising is her favourite move. Problem is, he taught it to her.

Bucky grips her ankle as she gets onto his shoulder and tosses her off. She rolls as she hits the surface of the roof and is back on her feet in a second. She’s in a defensive stance and he’s on one knee in the gravel trying to remember if there’s an awning that will break his fall over the edge behind him.

It’s a tense moment and he fights the urge to turn his head to check on Steve, keeping both eyes on Natalia.

“Soldat,” she says evenly and he can’t suppress the flinch.

“That’s not me anymore,” he growls and the expression in her eyes flickers.

“Following Cap around, skulking on rooftops…” She gets a thoughtful look in her eye that makes him want to squirm almost as much as that time Sarah Rogers caught them with a half a bottle of cheap whiskey. “Keeping an eye on your old friend there?”

Now he does look. Everything he’s gleaned from the internet and watching her with Steve tells him that she won’t kick him in the head when they’re talking, and that’s the excuse he gives himself in the three seconds it takes for him to find Captain Smedium sipping a coffee on a bench in the summer sun. He’s pulled out his phone and looks just like every other twenty something on the street.

A sharp trill snaps him out of it and he hears Natalia curse. Her hand automatically goes to her jacket pocket and he keeps still, his posture open but defenceable. She narrows her eyes at him, but pulls the phone out and answers.

“Hey Rogers, did the knitting circle finish early?”

Bucky’s enhanced hearing automatically picks up Steve’s laugh through the phone and he can’t help looking over the side of the building to see the way Steve chuckles. 

“Nah, it was the Brooklyn Old Timers Recipe Swap today. I’ve got a new one to try out on you; everything’s boiled, you’re gonna love it.”

It’s disconcerting to hear his voice and see him at the same time. Natalia banters with Steve and he's barely keeping track of their words, just the sounds. Steve’s voice is familiar in a way that very few things are and it settles a small part inside him.

“Listen, I'm just out shopping, but are we still doing dinner with Sam?” Natalia is holding Bucky with her eyes as she continues her conversation and he's puzzled by her misdirection. 

“Yeah, he's visiting his mom, but should meet us at the Tower at 7.”

Whatever she's about to say next is cut off by a fire truck racing by, its siren blaring through both phones. Bucky sees Steve frown as he hears it through the phone and watches it pass him on the street. “Nat, where are you?” 

She closes her eyes briefly. She appears to be debating lying vs truth and Bucky tenses. “I went to check out that free trade organic coffee place in Brooklyn you wouldn’t shut up about and then I found this really cute lingerie place. I’m trying on bras, want to come met me?”

Steve splutters through the phone and looking back at Steve, Bucky’s pretty sure he can see Steve’s skin turning pink. “Nat!”

“I’ll see you at dinner then?”

“Yeah, bye.”

Bucky looks at her as she puts the phone away. He'd been sure she was going to give him up to Steve because Steve was her friend and also Bucky was an internationally wanted assassin on pretty much every government’s Most Wanted list. “Why did you…” he manages to grate out and she glances at him before looking past to Steve on his bench, now scowling as he finishes his coffee.

“I know how much he wants to find you, but I also know a thing or two about how hard it is to find yourself.”

“Are you going to tell him?”

“For now, no. You deserve to make your own decisions, but,” she pauses and looks at him dead on. “He worries about you, that you're safe and eating and not dead in a bunker somewhere. You're clearly doing alright, so if you could just let him know somehow, maybe he’ll get a bit more sleep at night. And if he knows you're in New York he might stop dragging Sam across half of Europe. Sam’s got a life too, even if Steve doesn't.”

Bucky manages a rusty chuckle and it's even more worth it to see the look on the Black Widow’s face when he does.

“Alright, I'll think about it.”

“All I ask.” With that she turns her back on him in what he can only interpret as a very ballsy trust exercise and strolls over to the edge of the roof before jumping down, not looking back once.

Bucky shakes his head and goes back to his crouch near the edge of the roof to watch an irritated Steve jab at his phone. He'll have think long and hard about contact.

 

Nat has insisted he needs more jeans; she’s been slowly weeding out his khakis and chinos ever since she helped him unpack and Steve knows what she’s doing but can’t seem to mind. She bullies him into what she wants because she thinks it’s best for him and he lets her because she’s usually right - it’s been working for them.

They’re between stores when Steve pulls rank and steers them towards Starbucks. Keeping up with Natasha usually requires caffeine or adrenaline and he’s in the mood for a frappuccino today. They’re heading in when something brushes the top of Steve’s head and he looks up. A rainbow flag is hanging above the door and he notices the sticker on the window too. 

Nat correctly interprets his look as they enter. “It’s Pride Week next week, so the city’s getting ready. Pretty much any business that isn’t owned by assholes will have flags up. Haven’t you been here for Pride? It’s a little hard to miss.”

Steve shrugs as they line up. “I think I didn’t understand the first time and wasn’t here last year. I remember seeing it on the news when I was in DC, but I didn’t think I could go.”

She fixes him with a look, but they have to order before she can press further. Somehow she manages to get them a small table and once they’re seated she pins him with the look again. “What do you mean?” she asks, sipping her coffee.

“I didn’t want to go and have people see Captain America at a Pride event and have it be a big thing.” Steve takes a sip of his drink, fidgeting with his straw wrapper. “I wanted to see what it was like but I was… I was scared,” he admits quietly. “I didn’t want it to become “Captain America is gay” because I don’t even know if that’s right, and it would turn into a circus and I just wanted to, I don’t know, try? Take advantage of the fact that it’s better now and even possible at all.” 

“Then we’re going.”

Steve looks up at Natasha, hope warring with worry. “How? We’re even better known now then two years ago.”

The look she gives him is so withering it’s like he spat in her coffee. “Steven Rogers, if you ever impugn my skills like that again…”

“Okay, okay, sorry.” He grins at her and she smiles back.

“This is going to be fun.”

 

A week later he’s staring at the mesh shirt Natasha has handed him and deeply regretting his decisions. “Nat, no.”

“Nat, yes,” she calls back from the other room.

“Natasha.”

She swans out of the bathroom wearing cutoffs, rainbow high tops and a cropped t-shirt that says ‘NO H8’. “Fine, I brought this one too, in case you were a giant chicken.” She whips a white shirt at his head and he grabs it, not rising to the usually very effective bait.

She’s staring at him expectantly so his grits his teeth and strips off his regular shirt to put on the new one. It’s a lot tighter and thinner than he anticipated, clinging to his chest and biceps, and he almost feels more exposed than when he was shirtless.

“Nat…”

“Listen, you don’t want to get recognised? I guarantee you, no one is going to be looking at your face as long as you’re wearing that shirt.” At his unconvinced look she gives him a huge fake sigh. “Fine, come into the bathroom.”

She sits him on the closed toilet and gels his hair up, spikey and modern. It has the side effect of turning his hair a darker blonde, which he doesn’t mind too much.

“Lean over the sink.”

“What?”

“Lean. Over. The sink. Unless you want glitter on your floor until the end of time?”

He leans over the sink and she proceeds to dust purple glitter all over his spiked up hair. He winces automatically, but when she’s done he kind of likes it. It feels very un-Captain America and it’s a little freeing, like maybe this can be Steve Rogers, too. Nat’s glueing on her rainbow eyelashes but smiles when he looks over.

 

They quickly get swept up into the crowd as soon as they step off the subway. Everyone is happy and celebrating around them and when Steve adds the rainbow-lensed aviators Nat hands him to his ensemble he feels like he might just belong. True to her word, no one gives his face a second look, though he can’t say the same for his arms or chest. He doesn’t feel his usual embarrassment, though, because it seems like everyone’s looking at everyone that way and it just adds to the feeling of anonymity. Nat has her hair up in pigtails and blends in perfectly, of course, looking young and relaxed.

Nat’s not laughing at him, which is a nice change, though the look on his face when he spots the guy dressed up as a mostly naked unicorn is apparently hilarious enough to Snapchat to Clint. She’s a good guide, giving him cultural and historical context to pretty much everything, and she genuinely seems to want to help him be comfortable.

After a while the crowd starts feeling a little more crushing than exhilarating, so Nat steers them away towards the tents and stalls set up to sell food, drinks and everything you could possibly cover in rainbows.

They’re browsing through one stall and Nat holds a shirt with the pride flag up to his chest. “This one? Or -” she replaces it with a shirt that has the bi flag on it. “This one?”

Steve flushes. She’s hit the nail on the head, as usual, without him even having to say it. “That one. But, wait, I don’t think I’m ready for a shirt yet.”

The smile she gives him is understanding but she still tosses her head. “I’m getting you something. We have to mark your first Pride somehow.” Steve follows her over to a table full of buttons and magnets. She holds one up that says ‘I like my men like I like my women’ and he laughs. Followed by ‘Shy, bi and ready to cry’ and ‘Just getting Bi’. He shakes his head and finally picks a small magnet in the pink, purple and blue bi flag colours. Nat takes it from him and heads over to pay the guy behind the table. She stops and picks up one of the pins. “Hey S- sweetie, look at this.”

Puzzled, Steve heads over and she shows him the pin designed like his shield, but done up in the pride colours. It catches him off guard and hits him viscerally. To see the representation of his outward persona taken on by a community he wants to feel a part of makes him so happy and he grins at her, even if his eyes are a little wet, too.

“We’ll grab this one, too.”

“Thanks, hon. Hey did anyone ever tell you that you look a bit like him, Captain America, I mean.” The guy behind the table grins at Steve, who can feel his smile freeze.

Nat laughs and Steve feels panic for a moment. “I know, right?” Nat agrees, her voice subtly climbing higher as she talks. “I’ve been telling him he needs to cosplay as Cap for Comic-Con next year! I’m thinking I should do Black Widow, because she’s such a babe. And the only girl, but don’t even get me started on that. Fucking patriarchy.” She tosses her head again and she and the shop guy exchange high fives. “But, yeah, see, you should totally do it. I told you.”

“Well, maybe,” Steve manages to drawl out.

“There’s ways to temp lighten your hair, too,” the guy chimes in. “But you might be a little buff-er than the real thing, so definitely a custom suit. Don’t get the crap from online, go local.” His eyes linger on Steve’s biceps and Steve flexes subtly to see the guy’s eye widen a bit. “Yeah, definitely more buff than the real Cap, no offence intended to the best ass on the Avengers.”

Nat looks so delighted, Steve’s pretty sure he’s never seen that dimple. She takes her change from the guy and the magnet in a little bag, but stops outside his tent to pin the button to Steve’s chest. She pats it and looks up at him. “I'm really glad we did this today.”

“Yeah, me too. Thanks, Nat.” He wraps both arms around her and lifts her bodily off the ground in a hug. She laughs delightedly before he sets her down. 

“Come on Mr Almost-Cap, buy me a popsicle shaped like a dick.”

“Oh my god, Nat.”

 

The day after Pride, Steve takes his time in the morning. He and Nat hadn't stayed out late, but the busy and very exuberant day has left him a little flash burned and looking for some quiet.

“Captain Rogers, you have a delivery.” JARVIS says, startling him out of his pre-coffee contemplation of the world.

“Uh, thanks. Do I need to..?”

“It is being brought up as we speak and should be arriving momentarily.”

A minute later there’s a knock on his door and Steve opens it to find one of the Stark interns holding a letter.

After she leaves he turns it over in his hands. It’s a plain white envelope, cheap and thin. There’s no return address and nothing on it anywhere but ‘Captain Steve Rogers’ written on the front in neat caps.

“JARVIS, did this come through the mail?”

“No, Captain, it was dropped off at the front desk. It has gone through the standard security scans and no issues were raised.”

“Thanks, JARVIS.”

He opens it and unfolds the single sheet of notebook paper.

_Steve,_

_I ran into a mutual acquaintance of ours and she told me I should let you know that I'm doing alright. I'm here in New York and no, I'm not telling you where. I'm still getting my head back together so I need the space before I'm fit to be around but I'm eating and I have a roof over my head. Figures that would be what you’re worried about._

_I know this is hard for you, you stubborn punk, but just let it go for now. I promise I’ll find you when I’m ready._

_-Bucky_

Steve’s heart squeezes and he can’t stop himself from tracing over the signature, the copperplate a distinct difference to the scratchy printing of the rest of the latter, like Bucky’s name in his handwriting was muscle memory that couldn’t be erased.

He can’t decide if he wants to laugh or cry. For a second he sort of does both, letting out a wet chuckle as he re-reads it again. So Nat, then and maybe that was what she was dancing around the other day on the phone. Did that mean that Bucky had been there too? To have been so close to him and not known…

But she’d clearly made contact and managed to convince Bucky to send him this letter. It felt like a gift and his birthday wasn’t even for another week. He set the letter down and placed both palms flat on the counter, head hanging down and breathing deep. Bucky was fine. He was okay and in New York and even if he wasn’t ready to see Steve yet it wasn’t a no either. That alone was enough to dull the sting as he stood up straight again, touching the letter one more time before he made some coffee.

Nat swings past later that afternoon, wearing Steve’s rainbow aviators from yesterday and carrying a bag of bagels and smoothies for both of them. “I know you can’t get hungover, but it’s still good for you.”

She detours to the kitchen to set the bag on the island and pauses when she sees the only thing hanging on Steve’s fridge. She raises an eyebrow at him and he nods, watching her as she gently removes the magnet and reads the short note.

“Well, that’s quicker than I expected. Did he deliver it himself?”

“I… didn’t think to check.” He flushes as he watches Natasha replace the note under the bi flag magnet she’d bought him yesterday.

She shakes her head. “JARVIS, do you have video of whoever delivered Steve’s letter?”

“Certainly.” The tv switches on and the lobby security footage begins rolling. Steve and Natasha move together to stand behind the couch and watch as a man with chin length dark hair under a baseball cap approaches the security desk. He keeps his head down but the security guard clearly smiles in reaction to something he says and he hands her the letter. Stuffing his hands in his jacket pocket he turns to go, but not before throwing the security camera a quick grin over his shoulder as he strolls out the front door.

Steve is staring. He wants to ask JARVIS to play it again, to watch this new version of Bucky until he’s memorised each feature again. But he’s not willing to let Natasha see him be quite that pathetic, so he holds his tongue.

Natasha taps her fingers against her lips. “Save to Steve’s hard drive and to mine. Just in case we need it for reference later,” she says off-hand, still looking at the screen and not at him. Steve feels a rush of gratefulness until she adds “And make the frame from 2:37 Steve’s new phone wallpaper.” 

He facepalms.


End file.
